Estimate effort for agile development

Once the product features have been sketched out, if falls to the project team to
figure out what it will take to deliver them.

Effort estimates are almost always more accurate when they address small, discrete
chunks of work. But you need to forecast effort for a large, complex undertaking.
TeamForge helps bridge this gap by
dynamically calculating effort estimates at multiple levels.

There are two ways to
determine the effort involved in an artifact:

Break the work down into discrete chunks, then use your experience and judgment
to come up with a real-world estimate for this artifact.

Have the effort estimates for all the artifact's children (if any) automatically
added and shown in this artifact.

You will be using a combination of these techniques as you work through the
estimating process.

Analyzing the work is an iterative, interactive process. As you go through it, you'll
find your effort estimates changing shape in response to feedback from scoping the
product and planning out the work.

With your team, review the artifacts the product owner has created.
How much effort will each one require? Do any of them require special skills
or training? Record your observations about each artifact in its
Comment field.

Note: This is a rough cut. Don't try to come up with a final effort estimate
yet.

For each user story, identify the specific tasks that will be required. Create
an artifact to contain each of these tasks.
Declare each of these task artifacts a "child" of the initial artifact.
Now you can attempt to estimate the work involved in each task artifact.
This will be the raw material for your higher-level effort estimates and
progress tracking.

Back in the "parent" artifact, select Sum effort from
children.
Now this artifact's effort field shows the total of the effort units
assigned to each of its "children."

Note: If an artifact has children that
belong to another project, the effort value for those child artifacts is not
counted.

As you proceed, you will find the overall picture taking on definition.
Relationships among artifacts will emerge, and many of them will seem to fall
into one logical group or another. Let these groupings determine the names
and purposes of your planning folders.